Warrant articles set for June 10 referendum ballot

By Stuart Hedstrom 
Staff Writer

    DOVER-FOXCROFT — Ten articles were approved by residents for the June ballot during the annual town meeting on the morning of April 26 at the Morton Avenue Municipal Building gymnasium. These articles will now go to the June referendum ballot, to be decided at the polls on Tuesday, June 10.

    Those in attendance approved the articles concerning town expenses for the 2014-15 fiscal year. As of the present time the gross spending plan totals $4,068,350, an increase of nearly $133,900 or 3.38 percent from the current year.
    A sum of a little more than $1.8 million from various revenue sources, about $86,000 less or 4.55 percent from 2014, is included in the spending plan to equal an amount of $2,263,960 that would need to be raised through property taxes. The net budget figure represents a $218,954 or 10.71 percent increase. The current estimate of the 2014-15 mil rate, which includes Dover-Foxcroft’s portion of the RSU 68 school budget, is a .61 increase to $18.26 for every $1,000 in assessed property.
    One article to be decided in June concerns refinancing wastewater debt. A new bond would refinance outstanding bonds at a lower interest rate, either at or near 1 percent compared to the existing rate of 4.25 percent and a shorter repayment term of 20 years compared to 25. The estimated savings by the refinancing is just over $362,882.
    The last three articles concern ordinance amendments, with the first of these pertaining to shoreland zoning. “A few years ago areas that were put into resource protection now have the option to be moved back into general development,” Town Manager Jack Clukey said, with a map handed out at the meeting detailing these specific portions of Dover-Foxcroft.
    “It’s just a bit more permissive than shoreland zoning protection,” he said. “The planning board’s gone over it and there’s been a public hearing on it,” Clukey said, adding the comments at the hearing were in favor of the zoning change.
    The other two articles pertain to impact fees and contract zoning. Clukey was asked where the proposed contract zoning amendment to the Land Use Ordinance came from.
    “The impact fees and contract rezoning were really introduced to me and the select members at a workshop,” he said, with these being considered as tools that can be used by municipal officials to aid in the development process.
    “Right now we have a comprehensive plan and we have zones,” Clukey said. “If there’s activity that is consistent with the comprehensive plan and the zone it’s in, but for whatever reason doesn’t meet the technical requirements of that zone there are two choices — you can either say no or change the entire zone.”
    With a contract rezoning, which would have to be approved via a town meeting vote, an activity could be then be permitted without a larger zone change. “It’s a tool that we would have the ability to use that we don’t have now,” Clukey said, such as to assist in an economic development project.